phones you know what I love about them I
love how they fit perfectly in that
handy little pocket in the front of my
boxer shorts for storage the pleasing
vibration sensation from incoming calls
is more important than reproduction
anyway and furthermore sorry not just a
second - that's not a what that's
not a pocket no there's not enough
swinging there's not supposed to even be
enough space in there to store a phone
well maybe you just have a very small
problem going on down there hey
Corsair delivers real Necker nothing
with their new strafe mechanical
keyboard featuring genuine German made
Cherry MX key switches click right here
to learn more I don't really know where
to start with the LG g4 so I guess I'll
lead with a drop a like if you wanna see
me take my electric unicycle review to
the next level by adding aerial footage
to the selfie stick footage we already
have and I think that's all the stalling
I can get away with here's the problem I
usually sit down to script my review
with two or even four pages of notes
mostly complaints for a mobile device
video point form today I have half a
page which is actually a really good
sign for the g4 which I've been using as
my daily driver for a little over a week
so let's kick off with specs and I'll
start with the processor controversy the
g4 is a $600 phone off contract so it
has the top-of-the-line Qualcomm
Snapdragon 810 CPU right-wrong while
it's unclear whether the reason was one
of cost reduction or one of thermal
control LG has opted for a Snapdragon
808 which features the same for a 53
cores for lower power background tasks
but two fewer high performance 857 cores
something that in theory damages
performance in heavily multi-threaded
workloads but based on some fascinating
testing done by Android Authority may
actually not affect real-world results
that much thanks to the 808 far lesser
thermal throttling the rest of this
phone is pretty standard fare though on
paper at least Adreno 418 GPU 3 gigs of
ddr3 L memory 32 gigs of internal
storage Corning Gorilla Glass 3 on the
5.5 inch IPS display active noise
cancellation for phone calls a 16
megapixel rear and 8 megapixel selfie
camera a 3000 milliamp hour battery with
quick charge 2.0 allowing a 60 percent
charge in about half an hour dual then
daysy Wi-Fi and an FM tuner which I see
I got you there the FM tuner is a little
unusual these days actually but some
folks will appreciate it specifically
those with low cap date
who don't want to use the microSD
expansion slot to hold up to 128 gigs of
extra music or anything else and yes
that is another one under the removable
backing which is available in plastic
and leather options not to mention the
of course debrand skinned one that we
have on ours is the aforementioned SD
slot contact points for optional qi
wireless charging rear plates and ah
that 3000 milliamp battery is removable
something we used to take for granted on
the Android side but that Samsung did
away with on the Galaxy s6 and as we dig
away under the skin of the g4 we can
actually find some other things that
make it more than just another g3 for
starters while the g3 had a 1440p IPS
display I criticized it at the time
because there were phones with 1080p
displays that smoked the g3 in spite of
its extra resolution in important use
case scenarios like standing outdoors
thanks to their high contrast ratios not
this time the g4 screen has gotten some
serious upgrades including integrating
the touch screen and LCD panel into a
single layer for better color
reproduction and utilizing quantum
display technology not to be confused
with quantum dot which requires a
separate layer and thicker bezel to
improve color reproduction with LG
quoting 98% DCI coverage increase image
brightness substantially and crank
contrast to the point where I forgot
sometimes that I wasn't using an AMOLED
display all of this without affecting
battery life and it looks really good I
still don't think 1440p is necessary in
a handheld but at least besides the
extra strain on the GPU to power it in
games and whatnot there is no drawback
now so let's talk day-to-day use
ergonomics of the phone or a strong
point considering its size I generally
have trouble if anything above five
inches if you know what I mean but it
seems like I'm not the only one out
there who feels like whether it's by
merit of its gently curved shape oh yeah
I guess I forgot to mention that the
screen is very subtly curved or the
positioning of all of the physical
buttons so up-down and lock on the rear
of the phone it's somehow less on
for me than most five and a half inch
devices and we probably have to give
LG's Optimus UX software layer some of
the credit here though some stuff like
double touching to wake which really
does help with the size has been so well
received that others have adopted it and
while there's definitely more bloat than
even Samsung's latest iteration of
TouchWiz I didn't find any of it
particularly objectionable and no
particular order
I liked the contextual information smart
notice widget on the home screen by
default it's visible enough to be
convenient with whether upcoming
birthdays contact suggestions and other
updates but not so in-your-face that
it's annoying the clipboard for copy
pasting is awesome the accessibility
options continue to be outstanding for
LG dual window is handy for multitasking
and little touches like smart settings
lets you customize some behaviors like
Wi-Fi or Bluetooth on and off if you
want but otherwise completely stay out
of the way and you don't have to look at
them at all and additionally most
importantly I didn't notice any
performance chugging which used to be my
primary complaint about these skins so
kudos for that and on the subject of
kudos let's get into the best thing
about the phone finally the camera check
out this selfie I took yeah baby what a
great get no sorry while the
front-facing camera is actually good and
that selfie aside from the stupid face
I'm making is a pretty good one it's the
rear camera that truly rocks here it's
laser focus mechanism and built-in color
spectrum sensor enable the GeForce 16
megapixel camera to consistently nail
the most important things about cell
phone camera pictures focus and white
balance giving surprisingly great
results in auto mode but throwing in RAW
shooting and then surprisingly fine
manual control for the shutter bugs out
there as well and while I could
criticize the camera apps slow startup
time a double touching volume down to
launch the camera is good and video
recording it just took a picture and
video recording is excellent as well the
preview window is very fluid and doesn't
resize when you switch modes and thanks
to three axis image stabilization
prising li easy to get rock-solid
footage out of it with all the usual
modes including Ultra HD at 30fps and
slow-mo supported so the conclusion here
is pretty simple the g4 does a lot of
things right and did nothing to offend
me the horrendous rear facing speaker
notwithstanding unlike Samsung and Apple
LG doesn't have their own flagship class
mobile processor design so the g4 uses
an off-the-shelf debatably not top-tier
CPU but honestly I felt like phones have
been fast enough for a while now and it
never felt like an issue to me the whole
time I was using the device so congrats
LG the g4 wins a recommendation for me
as long as its buyers are willing to
accept the relatively plasticky build
quality that comes with the flexibility
of a replaceable battery and on the
subject of the replaceable battery some
of you are probably wondering what
exactly that sexy carbon-fiber skin that
I have on the back of the phone in all
of our b-roll is that my friends is a
precision cut skin from D brand skins
there are buds over there and men do
they ever do a great job of these things
you know the funny thing about it is is
my first D brand spot that I ever did I
was talking about how precisely they
managed to get the fit so that it really
did look like a piece of the phone and
remarkably they have actually managed to
improve it quite a bit since then as you
guys probably noticed in the b-roll you
can not see the seam in spite of the
fact that that vinyl wrap actually
doesn't even go around the edge of the
backplate it stops right at the edge of
it you just cannot find the seam once
you put the phone together so if you
guys are interested in checking out some
of the cool stuff they do whether it's
for phones tablets they even do laptops
game consoles game controllers head over
to the link in the video description so
check out D brand calm and yeah pick it
up they're actually very reasonably
priced and they're a Canadian company so
of course we love our Canadian Canadian
bros actually didn't realize they were
Canadian until sometime into the
relationship and I was like oh no way
they're in Toronto and it was awkward
because I was into
toe and he's like hey why didn't you
visit us missiles like yeah so there you
go so I guess that's pretty much it guys
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but if you haven't do definitely check
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